If I am not much mistaken I do believe us Brits invented the game of Rugby, as well as Football (soccer to some), Cricket and probably Tennis… and where are we on the world stage of these fine sports?… not at the top of our game that is for sure. So, how do we do in other sports like swimming, running, jumping, etc… with a few exceptions we are also not at the top… us Brits are not known of sporting prowess.

All for One and One for All
With us hosting the 2012 Olympics we need to raise our game or be embarrassed as hosts. It does not take a genius to recognise this and several programs are under way to find, develop and nurture the talent. However, our problem has its foundations in our schools. My kids had the awful experience of attending a school that did not recognise individual sporting effort. There was no competition… everyone went out on the field and everyone won. There was no incentive to achieve… everyone got the same reward… all for one and one for all… does not cut the mustard… where’s the incentive to compete?… where’s the incentive to work hard?… where’s the incentive to go that extra mile?… if everyone gets the same reward no matter what their effort, why should you work flat out when others don’t?

Bonus or Commission
It’s the same in business. Bonus schemes do not generate extra individual effort to achieve… those that put the effort in will have probably done it anyway without the bonus being there. It’s one of the reasons why sales guys are paid a commission rather than a bonus, because the commission scheme rewards individual effort… or does it?

Commissions are paid as an incentive for sales people to close more business… to go the extra mile to make sure business comes in and the company prospers… without business there is no prosperity… we all know this! Put a non commissioned sales guy against a commissioned sales guy and I will tell you who will bring in more business. So, we are all agreed, sales guys need to be paid commission to encourage and motivate them to go the extra mile and bring home the bacon!

Where it Starts to Go Wrong
The company does not want to pay out loads of money for no reason. They don’t want to pay commission to lazy sales reps who don’t earn it. They don’t want to make it too easy for them. They don’t want the sales rep selling something that can’t be delivered. They don’t really want to pay until the customer has paid. They don’t want to pay if there is no profit… and in response the commission plan starts to get complex and the incentive reduces in proportion to the complexity.

The Biggest Mistake
Other than the making of a complex commission plan the biggest mistake that most companies make is that they pay commission on revenue rather than order. The first problem here is that the sales guy is not in charge of delivery… that is someone else’s responsibility. If you sell some form of product that is shipped straight away then paying on revenue is not such a big problem. On the other hand, if you bag an order and revenue comes in over time then this is a big problem. A good example of this is services companies… win a big order and delivery is scheduled over months or even years and so the sales guy is paid as it gets billed and he has not control over this. How is the sales guy going to measure his sales earnings? Can he see where the money is coming from? If he can’t see it, if he can’t measure how he is doing, if he can’t project when he will hit accelerators, then the incentive is diminishing. Now he has one eye on delivery, when you already have an army of people doing this, and one eye on future sales. If you want the sales rep to perform he needs both eyes on sales.

I know a services company who pays on revenue and so much time is wasted on trying to figure out what’s being delivered the sales reps have given up trying to figure it and they now treat the commission as a bonus… i.e. the incentive has gone.

Keep It Simple
You don’t want sales guys responsible for delivery; you want them responsible for orders. Other people are responsible for converting orders into cash. If you have complex delivery then measure the sales rep on orders… either Total Contract Value or Annual Contract Value… don’t link their commission to revenue as com plan will get very complicated and a lot of effort goes into managing it. Tracking is easy and everyone knows where they are.

Go the Extra Step
Lastly, I’m constantly flabbergasted at how most companies don’t fully use the commission plan to provide the incentive for the extra push. The company will tell you how you have made to date, but don’t provide the tools to see how you could earn if certain deals come in. Sales reps need to start forecasting their commission rather than sales… but if the commission plan is too complex they can’t do this and the very reason for paying commission has gone… to provide the incentive to go the extra mile.

My daughter used to swim for a club… we had to get her doing something competitive… and I remember watching her do a time trial for her county time. It was a 400m freestyle swim and she missed her time by 1 second. She finished exhausted, she did not look like she could have done anymore. However, if she had known she was going to miss by 1 second do you think she would have found that extra time?… I’m positive she would. In fact I believe if she was 4 seconds down she could have found it if she knew early enough in the swim that was how much she was going to miss by. There are 6 turns in a 400m swim, she could make up 1 second a turn if she knew. However, knowing you are going to miss by 4 seconds on the last length would not have helped. Knowing where you are against your predicted outcome helps with that extra effort…. It’s no different for sales reps… know how you are going to finish early enough and if you are going to miss your target you will have time to do something about it… you can’t make it up on the last length!

In Summary
Putting commission plans together is not easy. Neither the company nor the sales rep wants to feel cheated. Simple plans are easier to maintain, easier to monitor and provide the greatest incentive. Pay on what’s in the sales reps control; avoid paying on what they can’t control. Have the sales rep focusing both eyes on bringing in the orders rather than one eye on orders and one eye on others who are responsible for delivering his commission.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

I thought I would share with you our Manifesto… It’s what we stand for, what we believe in and what we help our customers do / achieve… I believe it is food for thought for the New Year… assuming you need more food after the last couple of weeks!

1. Every business in the world has the same 3 sales tasks- Fill the pipeline, Manage the pipeline and Close the pipeline.

2. Bottom up thinking beats top down thinking.

3. Winning companies treat sales people as entrepreneurs running mini-businesses within companies.

4. There is no such thing as half a customer or half a sale. CRM percentage forecasting is fantasy.

5. All great sales begin with great questions. All great salespeople begin as great question askers. Small companies that ask great questions can beat big companies that don’t.

6. All sales success starts with naming deals that will close to make their target number.

7. Everyone with a sales target needs to show how they are going to make their number. Sale people, pre-sales people, product specialists, etc… follow the commission plan.

8. Winning and losing is separated only by which deals are focused on early.

9. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole - focus on the individual salesperson, not the organisation.

10 Biggest reason sales managers fail- they demand too much irrelevant data collection rather than focus on a few high quality sales actions.

11. A team which focuses on few relevant high quality sales actions can beat a team which spends its time capturing and reviewing large amounts of unimportant data.

12. A team that collaborates outside the traditional silos within an organisation can beat a team stuck in silos.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

It is a dilemma for small companies… do they hire dedicated sales people or get the doers to do the selling, in particular it is even harder for consultancy based companies to make this decision.

My advice… in general, hire a sales person. They are dedicated to bringing in sales and will be experienced at progressing the sale from initial contact to close… or at least they should be!

However, it’s not as simple as that as you need to look at the specifics. Hiring sales guys is an expensive business. It is also a very risky for small businesses because they can burn lots of cash for no return. Equally, if you don’t increase sales then the business does not develop – it’s a predicament! However, the solution is to reduce the risk as much as possible by hiring the very best.

There are a lot of people in sales – not surprisingly there are good ones, average ones and bad ones. I reckon the split is 20% good, 60% average and 20% bad. For those that are hiring a dedicated salesperson for the first time, then you need to hire from the top of the pile. Unfortunately if you don’t have a sales background then it’s not always easy to tell them apart. The CV won’t help that much either.

Obviously never hire a bad sales person. Average sales people are Ok if you have good sales management around them. The good sales people manage themselves and display the following…

• Strives to progress, personally and professionally;
• Seeks financial rewards for excellence;
• Grasps responsibility and thrives on it;
• Remains aloof from office politics;
• Thinks/questions/communicates;
• Doesn’t sell products - sells what the customer needs;
• Makes plans and fine-tunes them to facilitate the process of selling.

However, the big difference for a consultancy based company that will rule out many sales people is that you are selling services, not tangible products. Selling services requires special sales people. Traditionally the best sales people for services have been the doers. Just look at the big consultancy firms; it is the partners that have done the selling. It is the doers that the customer buys, it is these people who fill them with confidence that the job can be done.

However, the doers rarely have the all round skills to open new doors and close the deals at the appropriate times. So the big firms have recently been hiring dedicated sales people to work alongside the doers. It has not been easy as there are not that many our there. When the do hire, they take from the top of the pile and they take people with industry expertise and people with industry credibility. They also look for people who can work with doers and understand their importance in the sales cycle. When it works, it works well, when it doesn’t work it’s horrible!

In summary…my advice… if this is your first sales person, then hire the very best. Do not hire form the average pool as it will end up costing more. Hire someone with industry knowledge and credibility and is used to selling services – not products. Look at their questioning skills – selling is not about what you know, but the questions that you ask. Ask great questions and the customer will invite you back.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

I don’t know how you currently do it. You may have probability in your pipeline and produce a factored forecast. You may then roll this up from each of your sales reps and produce a consolidated forecast. You might compare the factored revenue with the un-factored and using past experience come up with the minimum you think you may get and then do some adjustments and get a ‘best can do’. You may then highlight a half dozen ‘must win’ deals across the team that you and the management team are going to focus on. You have done this for years and it sort of works. Well, you can do better.

Show Me How You Are Going To Make Your Number
First of all get every member of the sales team with a target to show how they are going to make their number. They have to show what has been sold to date, plus what they believe they will get in run –rate (sales attributed to their target for which they have no direct input – transactional business) and then add all the deals that they will be closing. Forecasts developed this way use the two outcome method – win or lose. Incidentally, lose means anything not won, which includes deals lost to competition, slipped deals and gone way deals. Generally what you will find is that out of a possible pipeline of 20 or so potential deals only 4 or 5 will be forecast. These will often be enough to show that you are making or exceeding target. The sheer fact that the sales rep has named those deals for closing means they are going to focus on them. By focusing on them, means they have a better chance of closing.

So, rather than roll up your pipeline, look at each individual’s forecast. First help those that are forecasting less than target. Understand why they are not confident forecasting some of their deals and help them get closer to the deal. For those that are forecasting their number, make sure the deals they are committing can be closed –review the deal plans. If you follow this advice you are focusing on exactly where the problems are in the team and the pressure for forecasting is where it belongs – with the sales rep and this is the most imporatnt thing to do.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

Ever heard anyone say something like…” we need more people able to close… you need to teach us closing skills…”

Like me I’m sure most of you will have a book on the subject of closing deals and by reading these you can become learned in the black art of the trial close, the story close, the alternative close, the assumptive close, the price close, the direct close, the indirect close, etc, etc… it goes on and on.

These techniques may work on the general public; they are sometimes very set piece and rather tardy when used business to business. Closing starts a long time before the end of the sale and the reason why most deals do not close is more to do with the way they are opened, rather than not being able to close.

If you have people who can’t close then do some analysis on their pipeline.

Let’s assume John needs some help.

The place to start is by reviewing all the deals that John has not managed to close. Sort them in to two lists.

• The first list is for the deals that did close, but with another firm – let’s call this the closed list.
• The second list is for the deals that have not closed with anyone – the open list.

If you have lots of deals listed under ‘closed’ then John does indeed appear to have a problem with closing. If however, there are a lot of deals list under ‘open’ then the problem may not be so much as closing but more of qualification – you can’t close a deal if the prospect is not that convinced they need the solution.

Why deals don’t close is a big subject, but here are some early pointers…

For deals that would fall under the ‘open’ category you first need to focus on the customer’s Business Imperative. This is looking at their need and why they must address it now. It is about linking pain and pleasure to their business and developing strong questions to ask that will make the prospect think. Making them think adds value and develops trust and respect. – this is all good groundwork for closing. You also need to make sure the deal is properly qualified and again ‘open’ deals would suggest poor qualification.

Now we turn our attention to the ‘closed’ list. Sub divide this into two further groups:

• The first group we will call the incumbent. This is the list of all deals that were given to the prospect’s incumbent supplier.
• The second list is all that closed deals that did not go to an incumbent.

Winning against a trusted incumbent is difficult. The incumbent has the trust, the respect and would be considered low risk. These deals need careful qualification. A negative strategy may help – you get the prospect to convince you that you will be given equal opportunity. If they want you to bid then you need full access to their personnel to build relationships and to build trust. If you don’t get the access, then qualify out as you will not win.

Now the last list – deals that have closed and not gone to an incumbent. If this is a large list, then you do need to look at the skills of your sales person. First of all are they confident, do they radiate with confidence in their ability and the ability of the firm? Would you buy from someone who is not confident? Do they let the prospect know that the deal is important to them, that it is personal and that they want to win it? They have to ask for the deal. They have to show that it is important. These qualities have to be there or closing will become difficult.

As I mentioned, closing is a big subject. Sales process is important and process starts with good qualification. Couple this with the Business Imperative, a good Value proposition and being in a position to influence then these are all the right ingredients. Qualification Analysis, Business Imperative Analysis, Value Analysis and Relationship Analysis are all parts of the sales process. Mix these with good communication skills and closing will become easier.

In summary, closing starts at the beginning of the process and requires solid sales foundation. There is no silver bullet for closing. It’s the general sales skills at fault, not closing skills.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

Normal sales convention allows us to have a Funnel and a Pipeline. The Funnel is used to maintain Sales Leads (potential sales opportunities) and the Pipeline contains the Sales Opportunities - those which we believe the customer will be buying from someone. It is important to distinguish between the two criteria – those in the Funnel have not yet committed to buying, whereas the ones in the Pipeline have committed – as far as we can tell! You therefore have two conversion rates to calculate – How many Leads convert to Opportunities and how many Opportunities convert to sales.

However, pipeline management is not a numbers game; it is what the wording suggests: “…facilitating an automated process that creates deep visibility into the sales process flows inside each opportunity, leading the sales professional to discover how they will make their quota, how to maximize their commission, leveraging the commission accelerators over a defined time horizon”. For those looking to manage their Funnel and Pipeline effectively, there are three principles we follow and teach that are different to most of the sales convention.

Follow the Buying Process
Firstly, you do not follow the sales cycle; rather you follow the buying process. Many sales professionals can get ahead of the buying process as they eagerly follow the sales cycle. They propose and think the next step is close. However many customers use the proposal to help clarify their requirements and they are nowhere near to closing. Management often gets excited – look at all these opportunities we have proposed and expect to see closing. Track where the customer is in the buying process.

Never Factor the Pipeline
Secondly, never factor the pipeline; never look for the weighted average. There are only two outcomes for opportunities – win or lose – there is no 10%, 20%, etc. Probabilities are misleading and designed to provide comfort. You do not want a comfortable sales team, quite the opposite. If your target is $5m and you have $15m in the pipeline which is weighted to deliver $7m then these figures show you are going to make your number. However, in order to do it you have to work on all $15m – there is no focus. Selling is all about focus and therefore name the deals that are going to close. To be able to name a deal for closing the Business Imperative must be understood, by you and the customer. The value you are delivering has to be valued by the customer above your competition and thirdly you must be able to influence the customer – have the right relationships. Throughout this process you must be consistently qualifying. Understand where the customer is and then decide if the deal is upside (not in your control) or commit (you are in control and can forecast it). The value of your commit opportunities should be equal or greater than sales quota – these deals are therefore your focus.

Make it Personal
The last thing to do is make it personal. Make sure anyone who has a target is showing how they will achieve it by naming the deals that will close. If they do not have enough ask to see the plan that recovers the gap. If the plan is showing the number then the only deals for focusing on are the commit deals. You will be amazed at how accurate your pipeline becomes if you adopt these simple steps. Manage the opportunities that will make the target, rather than manage the number of deals required at each stage.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

All great salespeople begin as great question askers. Small companies that ask great questions can beat big companies that don’t

Your value to your customer is not measured by what you know, but by the questions that you ask. You add value by making your customer think. The way that you ask questions will differentiate you in the way that you sell. In the ever competitive environment that we are in, when products and services are becoming commodities, the way that we sell can be our biggest differentiator. Add value during the sales process. Ask the right questions and your prospect will be only too pleased to give the time that you need to make the sale.

Knowledge is power and the more you know about your prospect’s company, business needs, decision matrix, personal needs / wants, problems / opportunities and your competition then the more likely you are to get the sale. Effective questioning, probing and listening will enable you to get the critical information you need to qualify the prospect, plan your sales calls, produce presentations and close the deal.

Asking questions of the prospect also puts them at the centre of attention and show that you care enough about them. You are looking to learn more about them, more about their problems, more about their opportunities and most importantly, you are getting the prospect to think. By asking questions, you move forward.

Generally, you should aim to speak no more than 30% of the time in a meeting, unless of course you are giving a formal presentation.

Effective questioning can:-

1. Provide you with the opportunity to help crystallise the prospect’s thinking.

2. Help you build rapport and trust by showing that you understand and show that you value the prospect’s opinion. Questioning also allows you to use their language, which in turn helps build rapport.

3. Allow you to gather vital information about the sale.

4. Enable you to control the meeting effectively.

5. Help minimise harmful misunderstandings that can occur.

6. Help reduce the resistance to the sale.

Here is an example of the power of questioning. This is an exercise we use in our workshops to demonstrate process and the power of questioning. Opening and closing a deal in 4 easy questions!

You will need a volunteer to work on….

a) Ask your volunteer what they would like to own that they do not already have. (use the word own, not buy)

b) Ask them what owning this product would do for them. How their life would be improved by owning this product. (they are telling you the benefits to them)

c) Ask them how much they would be prepared to pay for this product – name their own price (they set the price point)

d) Ask them – that if you had this product and you could sell it to them for the price mentioned would you have a deal (the close – and they should say yes)

The power of this simple set of questions is that you have conducted a successful sell. You have achieved it by only asking questions. The customer has done most of the talking. You have sold the product and not mentioned anything about it… you just asked questions - it’s what good selling is all about.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

It is quite an outrageous claim to need only 15 seconds to be able to conduct a sales review… what could you possibly ascertain in 15 seconds? To make things equal, and possibly more difficult, I would want you to do a review with someone you don’t know, so you have no previous knowledge to fall back on… and you can even have as much information to hand that is available about their current sales… but remember you only have 15 seconds to read it!

15 seconds is all the time you should need to determine how well the sales professional is managing their business. You should be able to clearly see what they have achieved to date, what their likely outcome will be for the quarter, the confidence level you should have in this outcome, how well they are building their pipeline, the confidence level they have in naming the ‘must win’ deals and how well they are managing these deals. 15 seconds is enough time to give you the pointers of where to do a deeper dive if required. Time is money, so don’t waste your time conducting deep reviews in parts of the business that aren’t broken.

The only thing your sales team needs to be doing to help you with this review is to use, and I mean use, our Opportunity Management tool… Focus. Therefore before sharing with you the review process I will provide some background to the tool and methodology behind it.

Background
Focus is a visual tool and it is this aspect that allows the review to be completed very quickly. Focus is also built around a very distinct and powerful, yet simple, sales pipeline methodology, which I should just take a few moments to explain…

The methodology is based on a set of grids that are organised into 3 major vertical elements, Funnel, Pipeline and Outcome. The example I’m showing uses quarterly sales periods. There is a set of grids for each sales period.
The first element of the methodology represents the Funnel. The Funnel is for managing Sales Leads which are considered to be potential Sales Opportunities. It is believed the customer will want to address a potential Need and / or the customer already recognises they have a need, but have not committed to addressing it. The second element is the Pipeline itself. The Pipeline is for managing Sales Opportunities which are considered to be potential Deals. It is believed the customer has committed to buying a Solution for a Need. The third element is the Outcome. Opportunities exit the pipeline as being Sold, Lost or Slipped. Sold is hopefully self explanatory. Lost means you have not won. The opportunity has either been won by a competitor, or the customer has decided not to address the need. Either way, the opportunity is lost. Slipped shows the opportunities that have slipped to the next sales period. Slipped opportunities are the scourge of the pipeline – If you don’t record it you can’t manage it.

Now looking quickly at the methodology. The first thing to know is that it follows the customer’s buying behaviour. There are four behaviours which we label Need, Requirements, Solution and Deal. These can be seen as the grid labels for the top grids shown in the Funnel and Pipeline. If we are close to the deal the bottom grids represent the selling behaviours … we Explore the need, we help Define the requirements, we Propose a solution and then Close the deal.

In order to decide in which grid a deal should sit, first determine the close date and then where the customer is in their buying process – The close date will let you know in which sales period to place the deal. Where the customer is in their process will determine if they are at the Need, Requirements, Solution or Deal stage. The next thing to do is determine where you are… are you confident to commit to closing the deal? If the answer is no, then you are in the top grids – the upside. If the answer is yes then you are in the bottom grids – the commit.

The commit deals form part of the sales forecast for which we apply the two outcome forecast method – win or lose. Let’s face it, for any deal in your pipeline, you are going to either win or not win. There is no percentage winning, no factoring, you either win or lose – therefore forecast on that basis. The full methodology explains what you need to know in order to increase your forecast confidence but basically we look at four areas - the customer’s Business Imperative, your Value to the customer, your level of Influence and the Qualification… and now we know enough to start the review…

The 15 Second Review
If you are running quarterly sales periods then you need 3 basic reviews each period. You could have a month 1 review, month 2 and month 3. I am using a month 3 review as the example. The conclusions drawn would be potentially different if looking at the same data for a month 2 or month 1 review.

Step 1 – Dashboard - time required 3 Seconds
The first step of the review is to look at the results Dashboard. This will give you an excellent first impression on how the person is managing their business.

The visual indicator shows the Time Elapsed in the period, the Performance to date and the Predicted outcome. In the example shown the Time elapsed is 78%, the Performance to date is 16% and the predicted outcome is 114%.

At 78% through period the performance to date should be higher – deals are not closing. However the predicted outcome is 114%. Therefore, it is not due to lack of deals that the performance to date is poor.

Conclusion…this person seems to have a problem being able to close and also appears to be overconfident with forecasting – very little has closed during the quarter, but everything appears to be closing at the end! I would expect a more even closing pattern during the period. First impression is that this person is not managing their business very well.

Step 2 – Current Outcome - time required 2 Seconds
The second step is to look at the exit element of the pipeline. I am looking for evidence that the opportunities are being managed. For a month 3 review I would expect to see opportunities in all grids.

From our initial look at the dashboard we know that sales are not going to be high, however with nothing in Lost or Slipped I would be concerned that this person is only using Focus because they have been told to, and they are not using it to manage their business. With Elapsed time at 78% most people will have lost deals by now and other deals would have slipped.

Conclusion… this person does not appear to be using Focus to help manage their business and the results indicate this as well. This is the second piece of evidence.

Step 3 – Funnel - time required 2 Seconds
The third step is to look at the Funnel. This needs to be full; a full funnel is a characteristic of those that forecast accurately. It means going into a new quarter with most of the business already identified. It allows you to work with the customer early in the process to understand their business imperative, to help shape their requirements, to develop relationships and thereby build trust.

In this example the Funnel is well populated, so our subject does not appear to have problems identifying potential opportunities, but are they being managed?

Conclusion… It is not the lack of opportunity that is producing poor closure… you can’t make your number if there is nothing to close, but in this case there seems to be plenty building so the evidence is beginning to point at managing and closing skills.

Step 4 – Pipeline - time required 3 Seconds
The fourth step is to review the distribution of opportunities in the pipeline. In our example you can see opportunities in the Upside and opportunities in the Commit. Again this shows that there is no shortage of opportunities to close.

However, most of the opportunities are at the Requirements / Define stage… which is not what is expected at this time in the quarter. As time passes, so the opportunities should be moving from left to right. With 3 weeks to go before the end of the quarter I would expect the Requirements / Define grids to be empty. I would also expect not to find that many opportunities in the Solution / Propose grids, whereas the Deal / Close grids should have most of the opportunities.

Conclusion… There are more than enough opportunities to make the number, perhaps too many. Too many of the opportunities are at the beginning of the pipeline and therefore they have not progressed. For this time of the quarter not enough of the opportunities are in the Deal / Close grids. I would suspect that the deals are not being managed correctly.

Step 5 – Qualification - time required 5 Seconds
The final step is to have a quick look at the qualification details of a couple of the commit deals. You are looking to see how well the deals are qualified. The easiest way to do this is open the Qualification panel and click on one of the deals in the grid to view how it has been qualified.

The above shows the qualification details for one of the opportunities in the Define grid. This is an opportunity that has been committed to close and yet nothing is shown in the qualification. The view below is typical of what I would expect to see for an Opportunity qualified at the Define stage.

Conclusion… the opportunities do not appear to have been qualified. This is consistent with the irregular spread of opportunities in the pipeline and the current performance – the opportunities do not appear to be being actively progressed.

Overall Conclusion -

After this 15 second review I would conclude that this person does not have a problem finding opportunities, but they do have a problem with closing them. The evidence can be seen from the number of Leads in the Funnel and the number of Opportunities in the pipeline – there are plenty. The current performance shows a considerable gap and therefore with the number of opportunities in the pipeline this is evidence that they are not being closed. The other piece of evidence to support this is the distribution of opportunities – at this time in the sales period there are too many sitting at the beginning of the pipeline.

I would also conclude that this person is not managing their business very well. If they were, then opportunities would not only have been won, but also some lost and some would slip. The evidence showing this is a lack of won deals and nothing shown in the Lost or Slipped grids. The other evidence is a lack of qualification maintenance for the must win commit deals. The evidence shows the opportunities are not being progressed.

This person is using Focus to record Leads and Opportunities, but not using it to manage their business. They either do not understand or do not want to understand the benefit of the simple methodology. They may also not understand how to progress the opportunities. I would not trust the Predicted Outcome of 114% and therefore an action plan now needs to be put in place to secure the quarter for this person.

Of course, if you would have conducted the earlier reviews then things would have been picked up earlier. There are different conclusions to be drawn from earlier reviews as the distribution of Leads and Opportunities would be different, but the process of the review is the same. If you find you need a little longer than the 15 seconds, then 5 minutes per person would be able time to draw a number of conclusions about how someone is running their business. Do this for all your team and you will be able to quickly identify who needs your help and where they need it.

The beauty of the methodology is that they have to show how they are making their number. They have to commit to the deals that will be closing. Using Focus it is very easy to check the quality of their plan. There is nowhere to hide…
I don’t know about you, but I reckon that’s been a good use of 15 seconds of your time!

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

Let’s face it; we would all like an easy life, no stress and enough money to match the lifestyle to which we would like to become accustomed. It’s why we joined the sales profession. So, if you’ve not worked out how to have an easy life here are some tips.

1. Learn to become a ‘walking talking brochure’ - This is the easy route to selling. You don’t have to learn business speak, you don’t have to understand your customer’s need and you don’t even have to really listen to your customer – all you have to do is learn your product inside out. Therefore, when you are in front of a prospect, let rip with everything you know – they will undoubtedly be impressed. They will also have an easy time as you won’t be asking any of those taxing questions that get them to think about, and remind them of, their issues and problems – easy life all around.

2. Avoid qualifying your deals - Qualifying takes time and energy and may mean that you find out too early that a deal is going nowhere. If this happens you will have to take it out of the pipeline and then you may not have enough deals showing. Best bet is to leave the qualification and at least live the quarter in blissful ignorance that you will not be making your number. While the unqualified deals are there, then at least there is hope and it is only at the end of the quarter you need to worry. This approach takes away a lot of unnecessary stress.

3. Only use the corporate pipeline - You are going to have to use a pipeline, so at least use the corporate one. It’s probably been designed for the easy life. First of all it will have probability of success built in. It will then use this to factor the pipeline. Once the pipeline is factored you don’t have to worry which deal closes – factoring takes care of this for you. If it says you are making your number then obviously it can’t be wrong. If your factored number is less then your targets then put some more deals in and / or change the percentages – this will easily get you where you need to be.

4. Don’t put all your deals in the corporate pipeline - If you do, you only get asked questions and if you can’t answer them you look a bit stupid. Putting deals in the pipeline means more work as you will have to qualify them… and as per tip 2, you should avoid qualifying in the first place.

5. No large deals - Never put your large deals in the pipeline until you are certain they will close. Showing management too much only complicates things. They start offering help and making suggestions. Resources may be diverted to the deal your are running with as it will be deemed to be important to the company – all this creates more work, so best avoid it.

6. No research – avoid it at all costs. This produces work. It means you have to understand your customer. If you show your customer that you understand their business then you are raising their expectations that you might know what you are doing and that you might be helpful. It’s best not to get their hopes up, stick to what you know – your products – at least you will be on safe ground.

7. Killer (kill the) presentations – make sure that your presentations have lots of words on them. This will make it easier for you to present. You don’t have to learn anything and all you need to do is read the words to your audience. Make sure you have plenty of slides as this will fill all the time available and there won’t be any time for questions. The other advantage of reading the slides is that you can look at the screen, while you do it, this means you don’t need to look at your audience and make eye contact – this really does help as you don’t know the audience is there at all.

8. Talk about your company - Always open with talking about how great your company is and what fantastic work you have done with your other clients. This save you time as you don’t have to plan any questions, you don’t have to listen and therefore you don’t have to counter with questions that show interest. Just talk about your own company… it’s easy to do and sure to impress. This tactic also works for men when going on a first date. If you want to impress the women of your dreams then talk about yourself. Tell her how great you are, tell her what you could do for her and if you really want to impress her, tell her of all the people you have slept with (akin to showing your client list) and ask her if she want’s to join the list. You must have tried this approach with your customers, so why not try it with a new date; you will find it works wonders.

9. Do all the internal paperwork - This is a bit of a job saver if the quarter is not going to plan. Show management why you have not been able to get out there talking to prospects… it’s because of the paperwork you have to fill out, all those forms, all those internal meetings. Best of all, call a number of meetings yourself… your colleagues are not going to turn up to them anyway, so you won’t have to plan for them, but your diary will be full. Also, if you need to show a full diary, make sure you plan your meetings in widely dispersed geographies – at least you will have a lot of travelling time, which can be shown as the reason for poor sales. While you are travelling you don’t have to think much – which after all, too much thinking does hurt the brain.

10. Don’t close deals - This means they will be in your pipeline for next quarter. You can plan various meetings at the customer’s site. Don’t try and meet too many people as the few people you do meet probably don’t want the deal to close too early anyway. They probably want to be in control and will be running their own agenda – this should suit you as it means you need to spend time with people who enjoy your company, but don’t ask you to do too much strenuous work. If you find the right prospect, they will want to see more and more of your products. They will want to know all the detail, which is great because you can show them what you know about the product. Neither of you need to worry about what business benefits you need to deliver and this will prolong the sales cycle because they are going to have a hard job getting budget. The deal won’t go away because they will convince you they are in control. You will not know any better because you don’t know anyone else in the account who can confirm the real status of the deal – you can continue with the piece of mind that you are working on deal that will close – one day.

There we go… my top ten tips for an easy sales life. If you follow them you will find your sales life becomes even easier – you probably will soon find you won’t even have to turn up to work – you will have been fired for poor performance – well what do you expect for wanting an easy life!

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

If it does not feel right the customer will not be buying. Here is a little exercise to try:

1. Think of a major purchase that you have made. A purchase that you did not want to rush into buying because it represented a lot of money and you had to make the right decision, for example a house or a car.

2. Think back to where you were when you made the decision to buy.

3. Bring back what you were seeing at the time you made the decision and bring back what you were hearing at the time you made the decision. Bring back the time you made the decision as though you were watching a movie.

4. Run the movie until you get to the point when you made the decision to buy and when you have this, step into the movie.

5. Begin reliving the moment. Through your eyes, begin seeing what you were seeing. Through your ears, begin to hear what you were hearing. Relive the moment as though you were there.

6. Relive the exact moment you decided to buy and search your feelings.

7. At the very moment you decided to buy, it had to feel right. You probably even said that it felt right. If it did not feel right, you would not have bought.

Your customers will be doing the same to you. If it does not feel right, they will not be buying from you. It’s your job to make it feel right!

Remember: All buying is based on emotion.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post